Finally finished watching the whole series (26 episodes).
I really love the story, the characters and the meanings behind. Several elements I loved are presented in the story - CG effects, computer (or IT) related yet close-to-reality backgrounds, machines, wars etc.
Yes, as you may have noticed, that’s a little bit similar to Matrix. Actually there are many similarities between them, for example, the idea of everything you see may be fake, once you manage to handle programs, you can do nearly anything (virtually, at least). Also, the armor (我指機動裝甲, 有人控制那種, 不是攻殻車) in Ghost in the Shell are very similar to those in Matrix, or even more similar to those in Appleseed.
I think I really need to mention those 攻殻車 which are soooooo cute and human! They are machines that equipped with high-end AI. They help session9 attack, can be loaded with and/or controlled by humans. In the story, their AI learned too fast that they eventually came up with personalities, and started thinking of the meaning of life and death. They were worrying to be not under control. As a result, all of them (a total of 9) were sent back to lab. Although being abandoned, near the end of the story, when they heard about the news of session9 being attacked, they came together and helped, with a problematic grenade being their only weapon. And at the end, all three of them are sacrificed (another six of them had been destroyed after being sent back to lab).